The Strong One
by TheLadyHoll
Summary: Response to Mirandy6's & Mxrolkr's prompts: #1: ""This can be one of them saying it to or about the other or someone (Nigel?) saying it to or about them: "You are/she is my/her Achilles heel." and Prompt #2 "A is on location with the Runway & goes into labor. M has to deliver her child herself with the help of Nigel & Em." From the 3rd Annual Poke-the-Dragon Fic-a-thon at LJ.


My attempt at a double response to the _3rd Annual Poke-the-Dragon Comment Ficathon_ Mirandy6's prompt: 'A, heavily pregnant, is on location with the Runway crew to be with her wife while a photo-shoot is being done. A goes into labor, panic ensues over not being able to get back to town in time cos it's an hour away which means M has to deliver her child herself with the help of their dear friends Nigel + Emily that's if E isn't hyperventilating! (:' & Mxrolkr's promot: ;This can be one of them saying it to or about the other or someone (Nigel?) saying it to or about them: "You are/she is my/her Achilles heel."'

Warning: The Force (of FLUFF) is strong in this one ;)

* * *

**The Strong One**

"Sweetheart, I'll be fine."

"No."

To anyone else's ears the deceptively quiet no would have sounded no different than if the older woman were in an Elias-Clarke boardroom shooting down an idea for the next issue of Runway, but only her wife of the last year was able to hear the underlying vein of fear in the coolly voiced negative.

"Miranda, it's only an hour away from town and this is my first baby. You remember what the doctor said, first babies take ages to be born. Even when I go into labour in the city, depending on the traffic it will take you just as long or longer to get to the hospital. Besides," Andy smirked lightly as she came up behind her lover as close as she could, given the circumstances, and rubbed soothing circles on the tense, flat abdomen. "Didn't you tell me that the twins' birth lasted for 9 hours, and that was only AFTER your water broke and you realized you had been in labour for the last three hours while giving a presentation to the board?"

Miranda sniffed exasperatedly, knowing she was beaten even before Andrea had the chance to hit her with big brown eyes to which she could deny nothing. Andy felt the tense muscles under her hand ease slightly and their owner turned in her arms to look at her fondly and not a little helplessly.

"You don't understand, Andrea," Miranda whispered, smiling wistfully as she tucked a strand of brunette hair tenderly behind Andy's ear before placing an elegantly manicured hand protectively over the firm bump that was the culmination of the couple's hopes and dreams for their family. Miranda's eyes travelled downward and she was unable to hide the smirk that came to her mouth when saw the oversized sweatshirt pulled tightly over the bulge at Andrea's waist, proudly proclaiming 'Northwestern, baby!' in a tongue-in-cheek salute to her alma mater that the journalist found absolutely hilarious in her hormonally imbalanced state.

"Darling, _you're_ my Achilles heel; the only thing besides my children that has the power to truly destroy me, and that's why it is so important that you keep yourself safe."

Andy had wanted the experience of carrying a baby and raising a child with Miranda. She loved the girls more than anything and could honestly say what she felt for them was as strong as the feelings she had for the child in her belly – but they had been eleven years old by the time she and Miranda had gotten over themselves and gotten together; and Andy often thought about what it would have been like to raise them with Miranda or to have been there for all their baby firsts. So yes, Andy had wanted to have a child with Miranda, what Miranda hadn't realized at first was that Andrea really did mean she wanted to have Miranda's child.

Two months of dual hormone injections and two out-patient medical procedures and Miranda and Andy were expecting a baby boy in early August. Being young, the IVF took the first time and the pregnancy had been relatively easy, at least in the physical sense. The cravings, however, had been another issue entirely. Already blessed with a healthy appetite, Andrea became insatiable for certain foods, and inconsolable could they not be found. Most memorable perhaps was the instance where Andy had locked Miranda out of their bedroom and told her not to come back until she had crab cakes, or when Andrea had threatened to go out at 11 o'clock at night by herself to walk to the nearest market for a bag of jalapeno Fritos when Miranda had been busy with the book. Remarkably, to anyone who wasn't privy to their private lives, Miranda abandoned the book and sought out her wife's latest craving, then sat up with her an hour later when it gave her terrible heartburn like Miranda had warned her it would. Andy had also been unsympathetic when Miranda pointed out that it perhaps was slightly unreasonable to withhold sex until she had produced fresh peaches, especially as it was out of season and the craving had come when Andrea had been pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses up Miranda's inner thigh. "Sweetheart, it's your fault," Andrea had purred, stopping her tender ministrations.

"Might I remind you darling, that _you _were the one who insisted on using my eggs and having a Priestly baby. Though I shouldn't be surprised our son won't settle for anything less than exactly what he's asked for." Miranda smirked as she ran a hand over the tight skin beneath where her son grew. This was another facet of Miranda that had emerged with the event of Andy's pregnancy. Even more so than usual, Miranda couldn't keep her hands off of her, especially her belly, even before she had started to show.

"Mmm, true," Andrea had agreed as she sat back against the headboard before lowering her voice until it was a seductive growl, "although this time, Miranda, it was truly you that inspired this craving. Delicate, soft, and tender flesh that when ever so gently bit, flows thickly with sweet juices?"

"Oh God," Miranda whimpered as her own hand traveled unconsciously between her own thighs, trembling with need. "Ah, ah, ah," Andy had smiled evilly, "that's all mine, you'll have to hold on just a little while longer my peach."

Miranda did have to admit to herself though, in the privacy of her own mind, that the sex afterwards had been absolutely delicious, literally, when Andrea , tongue cold and wet from the icy flesh of the peaches had gently licked her into shattering climax before painting her nipples with the sticky, sweet juices both from the fruit and from Miranda . A divine combination Andy had declared a nectar or an ambrosia of the gods. Collapsing back on the bed in a sweet, sticky, sweaty heap Miranda pulled the covers over an almost unconscious Andrea and pressed a kiss to her swollen stomach before cuddling into the warmth of Andy's form.

Andy's voice pulled Miranda out of her fond reminiscences of the last eight months. "Please sweetheart?"

'Do not look into her eyes, Miranda, do not meet her eyes', Miranda pleaded with herself, knowing if she looked up she would be hit with the full force of big, beautiful brown eyes. Being naturally shorter than Andrea without her heels on, Miranda busied herself with re-folding one of the pleats on her wife's oxford maternity blouse she had tucked in to Seven jeans with a hidden elastic panel.

Too late, a soft, warm hand gently lifted her chin and pressed kisses to the older woman's collarbone and up her neck to just behind her ear as she continued to whisper endearments and assurances.

* * *

Shading her eyes with her hand, Miranda looked over from the last frame of the shoot to the folding chairs. It was 89 degrees out and the Arizona heat combined with the task of lugging around an extra thirty-five pounds had caused Andrea's flowered, cotton Betsey Johnson sundress with brass studs under the bust line to cling and stick to her skin, along with her hair. Trooper that she was though, her wife smiled brightly and waved with the hand not holding the large, icy Evian bottle as she sat under the only remaining tent, the others having been packed away into the trucks as they left through the alien dunes and rock formations of the desert. The last car, containing the photographer and the clothes from the final shot, rumbled past the remaining quartet. Serena and Nigel had just finished packing up the tent and were helping Andy out of her chair when the brunette froze and her fingers tightened around the handles of the chair.

"M-my water," Andy whispered hoarsely, more to herself than to anyone else as her eyes widened in realization and panic at the situation she currently found herself in.

"There's more in the car Andrea, really, it doesn't matter if you've spilt it." Emily gestured to Andy's grip on her water bottle and the growing stain dampening the dry, sandy earth beneath their feet.

Just at that moment, Miranda returned from attempting to make a phone call, but now that the transmission radio had gone from the site along with the other equipment, she couldn't get a signal out from where they were in the arid, windswept basin between the craggy mountain ranges that had provided the perfect backdrop for the romantic, soft ethereal blues of the clothes used in the shoot

Miranda took one look at her wife, and her heart dropped to the soles of her Kate Spade espadrilles."The baby…"

"Is coming," Andrea finished breathlessly, wincing and sinking back down into the chair. "And now."

* * *

"My darling, I never should have agreed to let you come on this trip."

Despite the immense pain and building pressure Andy still managed to raise an indignant eyebrow. "Let me? Funny, I didn't think w-i-f-e spelled mindless automaton." It had been twenty minutes since Andrea's water had broken and Andy had refused to get in the car, insisting they wouldn't have time to get to the hospital before the baby was born; and looking at the quivering muscles of her wife's grossly swollen stomach, Miranda was reluctantly inclined to degree.

So here they were, an assistant, a make-up artist, an art director and an editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine preparing to deliver a baby in the middle of the desert, where there was no cell reception and no access to running water, plumbing or medical materials other than the small box of band-aids and gauze retrieved from the glove compartment of the truck by Nigel prompting the response from Andy of "Nigel? I know you are a man so this may be slightly beyond your comprehension, but I don't think a FUCKING BAND AID is going to be much help here."

As the quartet argued over the correct path of action, Andy had lowered herself to the ground and was leaning against the door of the car, awkwardly trying to spread a towel beneath herself. In the face of her wife's pain and the seemingly imminent birth of their child, Miranda dropped to her seven hundred dollar YSL linen capri clad knees beside Andy without a second thought and smoothed the sweaty strands of hair away from her flushed, exhausted face.

"Andrea are you quite sure we haven't time to get to the hospital? You've been in labour less than half an hour and you're still two weeks away from your due date."

"Miranda, this is your son after all, maybe he's decided to push up the due date like his mother does run-throughs! Oh God!" Andy let her head fall back as another contraction wracked her core.

"I just hope he has his mother's efficiency and ha-ate of wasting time!" she panted as the pain reached a crescendo.

Miranda unclenched one fist and pressed a kiss to the nail-marked palm. "Darling, tell me what you're feeling."

"So…so much pressure, ungh," Andrea's back arched and she jerked suddenly, scared brown eyes meeting terrified blue. "Oh, I can't, unh, I can't stop it! Miranda, I – think I need to push. Uh huh, yeah, I wanna push, yup, okay, I'm going to push." Andy nodded decisively, her gaze focused inward.

"No, Andrea! You'll tear if you push before you're ready, I know it's hard sweetheart, but you must try not to push or bear down just yet. Remember your breathing sweetheart, pant and blow, pant and blow."

"Oh no!"

"What, what is it!?" Miranda all but shrieked at her wife's panicked voice. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, the girls are going to be so disappointed," Andy looked tearfully to Miranda as she thought of the twin redheads back in New York who were as precious to her as the baby she was currently giving birth to. "They practiced so hard to be there for the first part of labour. They've been working on their Lamaze breathing for months! Oh, my little coaches…"

"Andrea, darling, I know they wanted to be here, and I know how much you wanted them to be here, but right now we need to focus on this baby." Miranda's hands cupped the weary, straining muscles of Andrea's pregnant belly and Andy was able to centre herself again with Miranda's touch.

With that extra burst of clarity and focus, Andy felt a shift somewhere deep in her body and instinctively bore down.

"Alright, we need someone to deliver this baby now," Nigel spoke up from where he knelt beside Andrea's right shoulder. Carefully, he helped Andy brace her legs so that she was in a position to push while Miranda removed the ruined La Perla underwear and lifted Andrea's skirt so that she was able to see how close her wife was to delivery; and given the shape of her anatomy and the curses now being gutturally tossed her way, the baby was most certainly ready to be born and didn't look as though it would wait much longer to make its grand entrance.

"Anyone, has anyone here had any sort of first aid training that included childbirth? Or even BEEN to a birth?"

"Only my family's goat back in Brazil when it had triplets," Serena offered up innocently, even as Emily's eyes went wide and she squeezed the tanned, lean forearm, hissing into her ear. "Oh my God, Serena, did you actually just compare Miranda Priestly's wife to a goat?"

Red in the face, and huffing now, Andy propped herself up on one elbow. "Why not, Em? You've referred to me as a cow more times than I can count, why not a goat? Serena get down here."

A terrified squeak emerged from the redhead's lips as Serena divulged that particular fact while Miranda was within ear-shot, but it was over-shadowed by Serena kneeling down beside Andrea and the reaction that followed.

"No!" Miranda's head whipped around fiercely, her panic forgotten in that moment of protective ire. "Unless one of you is secretly qualified in emergency first aid or whose hobbies include recreational gynaecology, the only one to touch my wife and deliver our child is ME."

"Nigel, get me the blue wool and linen Lacroix shawl, I believe it's the warmest and softest of anything we have."

"M-Miranda, that's a nine…thousand dollar pashmina," the last part of the sentence died in Nigel's throat as steely eyes locked on him with a fury and an intensity he didn't think he had ever witnessed in Miranda Priestly, and without another word took off for the garment bags in the truck that had been deemed too valuable to be packed with the rest of the shoot clothes in the garment trailers.

"S-sweetheart, a clean t-shirt would have sufficed,"

"Nonsense, the first fabric my son will feel will not be being wrapped in a cotton-polyester blend." The indignant expression on her wife's face got Andrea through the next contraction as she thought of the tempestuous yin and yang of her wife's personality. Utterly practical and efficient in one moment, and the next demanding the immediate import of three rare elephants into the country as the dusty rose colour of their skin would set off the earthy tones of Thakoon's spring line and reflect the modern world meets eastern culture inspiration behind the clothes. God, how she loved that woman.

A dime-sized amount of the baby's head could now be seen, and tears, from joy or panic or fear or worry, neither Andrea nor Miranda knew, gathered in the stormy blue eyes and spilled down the older woman's cheeks and past trembling lips as she watched her wife bear down again and push for another inch of head. Andrea groaned loudly as the head slipped free, Miranda carefully manoeuvring the baby as it turned to face Andrea's left thigh and the shoulders began to emerge with much screaming and cursing from Andrea. "He's beautiful," Miranda sobbed, unseeing, or perhaps simply uncaring of the fact that there were people around her. "Oh Andrea, our baby is beautiful. He's almost here, my love. He is so close."

Andy forgot the gruesome stretching of her body for a moment and tears of her own spilled as she took in the beaming figure of her wife, kneeling in front of her as their son was born into her hands, and looking so beautifully, gloriously happy that Andrea found the strength for the next contraction.

"Blow my darling, blow. That's it, pant for this part as you stretch." Tears were running freely down both women's faces now and still holding the baby's head with one hand, Miranda leaned forward to kiss her wife as she bore down with every ounce of her remaining strength.

Finally, a teary, wounded scream from Andrea and their son was born from his mother's body into his mother's hands. Staring, gobsmacked, at the tiny, bloody, fluid-slicked baby in her hands for a moment, Miranda only remembered to breathe herself as the tiny lungs took their first breaths and whimpered their displeasure before tiny first screwed up and little legs curled in as their son cried for the first time.

"Oh," Miranda gasped, her own chest heaving rapidly with exultant sobs, "Oh, oh, oh," she cradled the baby against her chest as Nigel handed her the shawl to wrap him in, suddenly wondering why he ever thought there was a better use for the exquisite fabric as he stared into the face of the newest, tiny, perfect Priestly.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you," Miranda's gaze was first directed heavenward and then down at Andrea and the tiny baby nestled between them.

Mindful of the cord still connecting Andy to the baby, Miranda moved to Andrea's side as she caught her breath from the final push that had brought their son into the world. Snuggled against Miranda's chest, the baby's cries quieted down to whimpers and big blue eyes blinked tentatively and opened for the first time. "Hello, my darling boy. Mummy is so glad you're here

"Oh my God," Andy croaked, reaching out her arms for the precious bundle, "Hi sweet baby. Oh, Miranda he's perfect. Look, look at what we did! Hi my little prince, I'm your mama." Andy rested her head against Miranda's shoulder as they stared, captivatedly.

Andrea looked up at Miranda, who with her hair dishevelled, streaming eyes and a smear of blood across her cheek had never looked more beautiful, "and this is your mommy. She always knows how to fix anything. She's the strong one."

"Me? Andrea, you were the one who gave birth in some godforsaken part of the country in the middle of nowhere with no pain relief or medical support whatsoever."

"Miranda, A) I'm not sure Arizona is all that godforsaken, and B) blaming the cheesiness of the next sentiment on all the hormones coursing through my veins at the moment, you are all the support I need, in anything. I have no doubt in my mind that our son would have been born, whether or not you were there. But, there was no one I wanted by my side more than you…and perhaps an obstetrician. But in this, and in everything, you are the strong one Miranda."

"Darling, when are you ever going to realize that it is you who gives me my strength. Before I met you, I dealt in illusions, mind games and manipulations. It's you who have given me substance and meaning."

"It's you darling; my Achilles heel, my muse, my tether to all that is real and good…my love and my life."

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_I know, I know, mush-fest. But I couldn't help it! I'm a sucker for Mirandy baby-fic & fluff_. _Hope you enjoyed! Only my second response ever & third Mirandy fic(let) so comment, criticize, coo - I devour it all in my Miranda-like quest for perfection (or anything halfway decent to be honest.) :)_


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